Rhuddlan () is a town,

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, t ...

, and

electoral ward A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected to ...

in the county of

Denbighshire Denbighshire ( ; cy, Sir Ddinbych; ) is a county in the north-east of Wales. Its borders differ from the historic county of the same name. This part of Wales contains the country's oldest known evidence of habitation – Pontnewydd (Bontnewy ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

, in the historic county of

Flintshire , settlement_type = County , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , image_flag = , image_shield = Arms of Flint ...

. Its associated urban zone is mainly on the

right bank In geography, a bank is the land alongside a body of water. Different structures are referred to as ''banks'' in different fields of geography, as follows. In limnology (the study of inland waters), a stream bank or river bank is the terrai ...

of the

Clwyd Clwyd () is a preserved county of Wales, situated in the north-east corner of the country; it is named after the River Clwyd, which runs through the area. To the north lies the Irish Sea, with the English ceremonial counties of Cheshire to th ...

; it is directly south of seafront town

Rhyl Rhyl (; cy, Y Rhyl, ) is a seaside town and community in Denbighshire, Wales. The town lies within the historic boundaries of Flintshire, on the north-east coast of Wales at the mouth of the River Clwyd ( Welsh: ''Afon Clwyd''). To the we ...

. It gave its name to the Welsh

district of Rhuddlan The Borough of Rhuddlan was a local government district with borough status from 1974 to 1996, being one of six districts in the county of Clwyd, north-east Wales. History The borough was created on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Ac ...

from 1974 to 1996. As of the 2001 census, the population was 4,296 decreasing to 3,709 in the 2011 census.

Etymology

The name of the town is a combination of the

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...

words ' "red" + ' "riverbank".

History

In AD 921, the Anglo-Saxon king,

Edward the Elder Edward the Elder (17 July 924) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death in 924. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. When Edward succeeded to the throne, he had to defeat a challenge from his cousin ...

, founded a

burh A burh () or burg was an Old English fortification or fortified settlement. In the 9th century, raids and invasions by Vikings prompted Alfred the Great to develop a network of burhs and roads to use against such attackers. Some were new const ...

named ''Cledematha'' at Rhuddlan. In the following century, before the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conq ...

and subsequent Norman occupation of lower

Gwynedd Gwynedd (; ) is a county and preserved county (latter with differing boundaries; includes the Isle of Anglesey) in the north-west of Wales. It shares borders with Powys, Conwy County Borough, Denbighshire, Anglesey over the Menai Strait, an ...

, the

Perfeddwlad Perfeddwlad or Y Berfeddwlad was an historic name for the territories in Wales lying between the River Conwy and the River Dee. comprising the cantrefi of Rhos, Rhufoniog, Dyffryn Clwyd and Tegeingl. Perfeddwlad thus was also known as the Four ...

, Rhuddlan was the site of a Welsh

cantref A cantref ( ; ; plural cantrefi or cantrefs; also rendered as ''cantred'') was a medieval Welsh land division, particularly important in the administration of Welsh law. Description Land in medieval Wales was divided into ''cantrefi'', which were ...

and served as the seat of government and capital of Gwynedd for the Welsh king

Gruffydd ap Llywelyn Gruffydd ap Llywelyn ( 5 August 1063) was King of Wales from 1055 to 1063. He had previously been King of Gwynedd and Powys in 1039. He was the son of King Llywelyn ap Seisyll and Angharad daughter of Maredudd ab Owain, and the great-gre ...

(ruled 1055 – 1063), whose family may have been the traditional Welsh lords of Rhuddlan for generations. Following the Conquest, in 1086, Rhuddlan was recorded in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

as a small settlement within the hundred of Ati's Cross and in the county of Cheshire. A mint established at Rhuddlan in the 1180s by Dafydd ab Owain, and later maintained by

Llywelyn the Great Llywelyn the Great ( cy, Llywelyn Fawr, ; full name Llywelyn mab Iorwerth; c. 117311 April 1240) was a King of Gwynedd in north Wales and eventually " Prince of the Welsh" (in 1228) and "Prince of Wales" (in 1240). By a combination of war and ...

, was responsible for minting the first native Welsh coinage since the reign of

Hywel Dda Hywel Dda, sometimes anglicised as Howel the Good, or Hywel ap Cadell (died 949/950) was a king of Deheubarth who eventually came to rule most of Wales. He became the sole king of Seisyllwg in 920 and shortly thereafter established Deheubart ...

. The town is known for the ruins of

Rhuddlan Castle Rhuddlan Castle ( cy, Castell Rhuddlan; ) is a castle located in Rhuddlan, Denbighshire, Wales. It was erected by Edward I in 1277, following the First Welsh War. Much of the work was overseen by master mason James of Saint George. Rhuddl ...

, built by order of

King Edward I Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a vassal o ...

from 1277 to 1282, and for the site of another castle at Twthill, built by the Norman

Robert of Rhuddlan Robert of Rhuddlan (died 3 July 1093) was a Norman adventurer who became lord of much of north-east Wales and for a period lord of all North Wales. Robert was the son of Humphrey de Tillieul (or Bigod) and Adeliza de Grentemesnil, brother of Arn ...

about 1072. Well-preserved Rhuddlan castle has a great round tower and many surviving walls. It was built soon after the conquest of Wales. The town was thus where Edward I signed the

Statute of Rhuddlan The Statute of Rhuddlan (12 Edw 1 cc.1–14; cy, Statud Rhuddlan ), also known as the Statutes of Wales ( la, Statuta Valliae) or as the Statute of Wales ( la, Statutum Valliae, links=no), provided the constitutional basis for the government of ...

, laying down the way by which the

Principality of Wales The Principality of Wales ( cy, Tywysogaeth Cymru) was originally the territory of the native Welsh princes of the House of Aberffraw from 1216 to 1283, encompassing two-thirds of modern Wales during its height of 1267–1277. Following the co ...

, created by the princes of

, was to be governed. The town's first Welsh chapel, now 17 Cross Street, was built in 1771. The hymn tune "Rhuddlan" was brought to wider prominence by

Ralph Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...

as music editor of the first edition of The English Hymnal in 1906, and it has since been adopted by numerous other hymnals. It is usually sung to the words of the hymns "Judge eternal, throned in splendour" and, more recently, "For the healing of the nations".

Rhuddlan railway station Rhuddlan was a railway station located in Rhuddlan, Denbighshire. It first opened in 1858 as part of the Vale of Clwyd Railway, and afterwards under the auspices of several different companies. The station closed to passengers on 19 September 1 ...

was part of the

Vale of Clwyd Railway The Vale of Clwyd Railway (VoCR) was a standard-gauge line which connected the towns of Rhyl and Denbigh via St Asaph in North Wales. It opened in 1858, at first without a connection to the main line at Rhyl, but this was provided in 1862. At D ...

. The station closed in 1955 but the line remained open until 1968. The station was demolished around 1977 and a Premier Inn now occupies the site. In 2001, the

A525 A5 and variants may refer to: Science and mathematics * A5 regulatory sequence in biochemistry * A5, the abbreviation for the androgen Androstenediol * Annexin A5, a human cellular protein * ATC code A05 ''Bile and liver therapy'', a subgroup of ...

bypass was completed, easing access to Rhyl. Since 2001 the centre of Rhuddlan has been largely redeveloped.

Archaeology

In 2021 February, archaeologists from Aeon Archaeology announced the discovery of more than 300

stone age The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with ...

tools and artefacts in Rhuddlan. They revealed scrapers,

microlith A microlith is a small stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. They were made by humans from around 35,000 to 3,000 years ago, across Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. Th ...

s, flakes of

chert Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a ...

(hard, sedimentary rock),

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start ...

s and even rudimentary tools. Expert Richard Cooke believes that the remains were belong to people who was passing through and made camp by the river more than 9,000 years ago.

Notable people

:''See :People from Rhuddlan'' *

Hue de Rotelande Hue de Rotelande was an important Cambro-Norman poet writing in Old French at the end of the 12th century. Life He was a cleric and a native of Rhuddlan. He wrote in Credenhill, Herefordshire. Gilbert de Monmouth Fitz Baderon, a grandson of Gi ...

an important Cambro-Norman poet writing in Old French at the end of the 12th century. *

Philip Jones Griffiths Philip Jones Griffiths (18 February 1936 – 19 March 2008) was a Welsh photojournalist known for his coverage of the Vietnam War. Biography Jones Griffiths was born in Rhuddlan in Denbighshire, North Wales, to Joseph Griffiths, who supervi ...

(1936–2008), photographer particularly of the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

, and a member of

Magnum Photos Magnum Photos is an international photographic cooperative owned by its photographer-members, with offices in New York City, Paris, London and Tokyo. It was founded in 1947 in Paris by photographers Robert Capa, David Seymour (photographer), Davi ...

. * Lisa Scott-Lee (born 1975) of the pop band Steps and her brother

Andy Scott-Lee Andy Scott-Lee (born Robert Andrew Jason Scott-Lee; 29 March 1980) is a Welsh singer and the brother of Steps singer Lisa Scott-Lee. Career Music Scott-Lee was a member of the group 3SL, who had UK top 20 singles with "Take It Easy" and "Touc ...

(born 1980) lived in Rhuddlan. * Peter Smith (born 1978) footballer with 180 club caps * David Vaughan (born 1983) footballer with 476 club caps and 42 for

* Kelly Lee Owens (born 1988), electronic musician and producer; grew up in a nearby village. * Jack Sargeant (born 1994) politician, and a

Member of the Senedd A Member of the Senedd (MS; plural: ''MSs''; cy, Aelodau o'r Senedd; , plural:) (AS)., group=la is a representative elected to the Senedd (Welsh Parliament; ). There are sixty members, with forty members chosen to represent individual Senedd ...

(MS).

References

External links

www.geograph.co.uk: photos of Rhuddlan and surrounding area
{{Authority control Towns in Denbighshire Communities in Denbighshire Wards of Denbighshire